Edith Roosevelt

This event has been canceled at the speaker’s request due to an illness. We will make every effort to notify interested persons when and if the program is rescheduled.

Aristocratic and sophisticated, tasteful and discreet, Edith Kermit Roosevelt, wife of Theodore Roosevelt, ran the White House with a sure hand. But her reputation as a secular saint is misleading, says historian Lewis L. Gould, who among other things points to her virulent racism.

Gould taught history at the University of Texas at Austin until his retirement in 1998. Among his books are Edith Kermit Roosevelt: Creating the Modern First Lady and The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt.

The Beyond the Gowns series is made possible by grants from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Legacy Fund to the Kansas City Public Library and the Truman Library Institute.